Monday, March 13, 2017

One era ends as others begin ...

There aren’t too many occasions when photos of our
Boulder home are depicted under cloudy skies but this time, it seems more than
appropriate. After spending seventeen years “in residence” in the village of
Niwot, Boulder County, the deed has been done. We closed on the sale of the
only home Margo and I have known in all the years we have been married. Talk
about sentimental – we hardly pass a day without some second thoughts about
moving out, but the times have changed since we first moved into our home and
selling our home just had to be done.

A chapter in our lives has come to an end, as our good friends have reminded us
more than once. All the same, it will be tough to write about this when we
leave that final time and head to a house that will become our new home. For
the next three months we will be simply tenants in our former home, charged
with the responsibility of making sure nothing happens before the new owners
move in, sometime mid-June. We will have made our departure well before they
arrive and I cannot guess how we will react as we drive out of the garage for
the last time.

But after almost four years on the market, we finally found that proverbial
“market of one” – we knew that for this home in Boulder it would take some time
to locate that one family, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it
would take as long as it did. Nor did we truly understand that we would be
selling the home at such a discounted price and along with it, nearly all of
the furniture we either designed or selected. However, the art work, select
glass sculptures and yes, the home theater speakers (all of them) will be
coming with us to the new house.

Cleaning
out the garages in preparation for leaving meant that I had to park the cars
and motorcycle on the driveway. For a brief moment and quite unexpectedly, the
clouds cleared for a brief period giving us a short spell of sunshine! Regular
visitors to this blog will have read more than once of my thoughts about just
how many cars you need and what each should be as well as the capabilities each
should deliver. At one point, Margo and I had six cars as we divided time
between two locations and while this was a temporary instance reflecting that
our jobs took us to companies where showing up in our BMW 750i wasn’t cool – Margo’s
new boss drove an older BMW 320. But in time, we went from six cars to five to
where today, we have four.

Of course, there’s the RV and the trailer parked off site but among the many
questions we have been asked, following the sale of our home, has been about
the number of garages we will have. And it raises a good point given that Margo
and I have been openly considering whether we should drop one more car and see
if we can make do with just three cars. Remember, as you read this, we live in the
United States and it’s our rightful duty to keep Detroit humming along and this
is something we take to heart. As our English and Aussie friends rolling their
eyes – but heck, you need an SUV, an around-town car and yes, the long distance
grand tourer, not forgetting a capable track car, right?

Well, perhaps not. On the other hand, we continue to crisscross the country for
business and the company command center – our RV and home away from home - is
about to start its seventh summer on America’s highways and all of our vehicles
have been put to good use over the years. Continuing to work for the
foreseeable future means that we will spend even more time on the interstate highways
and so the RV, trailer and the Mini will continue to be seen in places where we
carry out the business of Pyalla Technologies for as long as Margo and I enjoy
what we simply have liked doing for the last couple of years!

The business of Pyalla Technologies often gives us a
choice of vehicle and even though the Jeep and the BMW are used exclusively for
business, we recently tagged out other vehicles with Pyalla license plates so
that should we venture out with one of our private vehicles, there would be no
mistaking who we worked for when we pulled up to a conference or user event or
exhibition. While we try to keep these trips to a manageable level, the past
couple of years have seen us doing almost a trip per month for ten months of
the year – the peak of winter as well as the height of summer usually have us
at home and for that we are more than happy to have time to ourselves.

But there has been some fallout resulting from just how long it has taken to
sell our home that will continue for a few more months. As we complete the move
to our new home our track car has had to take a backseat to other plans.
Sidelined while other priorities dominated our discussions and plans, we have
had to put off all further track preparation for much later in the year. There
will be track time and the Corvette Z06 will get “new shoes,” as Margo likes to
call replacement tires for any of our cars. Hopefully we will get in two or
three weekends with our friends who have been wondering where the heck we have
been for the past two years!

Coincidences
have happened many times for Margo and me but perhaps the most extraordinary
coincidence occurred when the closing date for the sale of our home just
happened to be on my birthday. For good reason, celebrating such a milestone
became a secondary consideration but there was still time to shake a martini
and Margo did a terrific job even as she caught me off guard, working from the
kitchen, as I raced to finish up a couple of articles. However, this was only a
temporary setback as one week later we found time to celebrate in style at one
of our favorite restaurants in downtown Boulder, the Oak at Fourteenth.

Featured more than once in posts to this blog, what we like most about this
restaurant is that it features a 40 plus ounce bone-in ribeye steak that is
cooked to perfection inside a genuine wood-fired oven. And yes, the
unmistakable aroma of the steak being cooked in this manner wafts over the restaurant,
piquing our appetites. With this dinner our drinks have changed a little over
the years where today it’s no longer our regular martini that we order but good
old-fashioned bourbon-based Manhattans.

Margo may have done a great job eating her portion of
the ribeye down to the bone, but there was still just a little left over that
we boxed and took home with us. I only write this as those close to us know how
few times we do this as we really find the idea of leaving with a “doggie bag”
somewhat disrespectful of the chef. But there always seems to be just a couple
of slices of perfectly good beef remaining and there’s no way Margo will ever
leave uneaten beef on the plate.

Whereas we can easily finish the twenty-two ounce (and even the chef-cut
thirty-three ounce) bone-in ribeye served to us at Mastro’s restaurants, forty
plus ounces is proving to be a little beyond our ability to finish. As the
evening came to a close and we headed back to where we are now just tenants, we
began wondering how many more trips we would be making to downtown Boulder.
Were we indeed coming to the end of an era?

If we were spending time wondering about the end of an
era, this past weekend was seeing the beginning of an era for the grandson of
the Kennys. Being grandparents of Colton Herta has been referred to in previous
posts but now our good friends Brian and Jan Kenny are becoming really excited
by the accomplishments of the grandson. Colton is a full time professional
racer who is just sixteen years old.

As the youngest driver to
join the ranks of highly competitive Indy Lights racing, he has a great car, a
great team and yes, a really good sponsor. The photos included in this post have been
pulled from tweets posted during the races as well as what transpired at the
conclusion of the last race and my thanks go to all those at Indy and the good
folks at Andretti / Steinbrenner racing. Yes – that Andretti family and if you
know the Yankees baseball team, then yes, that Steinbrenner. This past weekend kicked off the series opener on the
streets of St Petersburg, Florida. After practice Friday that saw him in the
elite of drivers – at one time sitting atop the timesheet – Colton qualified in
fifth place for the first race but followed up with an amazing stint to qualify
on pole for the second race. Suddenly, it was Colton more so than his father
Bryan, who was attracting media attention and both the Indy web site as well as
Racer magazine were constantly posting tweets about Colton. It doesn’t hurt
that Colton is racing under the Andretti umbrella – yes, that Andretti, with
father Michael and grandfather Mario legends of the sport – and with a team
owner who is a Steinbrenner (owners too of the fabled Yankees baseball team)
but ultimately, it is all up to Colton to produce results.

And what a weekend! Colton was definitely in the “Herta
zone” when photographed in a golf cart on his way to the pits for the first
race. Starting fifth he dropped back to sixth before picking off cars one at a
time to finish second. With plans of the team to finish in the top five in both
races, this was easily accomplished in race one but there was even better
results on Sunday morning. Starting on the pole, Colton survived three cautions
that all saw restarts on cold tires, he won the race. He led for every lap. And
he set the fastest lap time during the race. By the way, he broke the record
for the youngest winner of any Indy Lights race and not yet 17 he could be
seeing the team head to the big time with the Indy 500 next year – a full year
ahead of schedule.

As the web site for Indy Lights reported, “ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – Colton Herta rewrote Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires history books today by becoming the series’ youngest in Race 2 of the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The son of Bryan Herta, the retired Indy car driver and current Verizon IndyCar Series team owner, started from the pole in the race and led all 45 laps, holding off Santi Urrutia by 1.7797 seconds. At 16 years, 11 months, 21 days, he becomes the youngest race winner in Indy Lights history.” As for what Colton had to say, according to the post, “It’s amazing to come back from (racing in) Europe and into the INDYCAR paddock and be winning right away,” said Herta, who raced in the EuroFormula Open F3 and British Formula 3 series last year. “It’s a good start and we’re going to keep it rolling.”

As for the reaction by the grandparents as this was
unfolding perhaps it can be best summed up with this short video that they
forwarded to me as the last lap of that second race concluded:

As for the team, perhaps the best post of all came from Steinbrenner racing with the following tweet and a reference to how, for a rookie team launching a brand new car with a completely untested (in Indy, at least) racer:

We continue to look at our home knowing that within
weeks we will be moving and with the move, an era comes to an end. Clouds have
been our constant companion of late with afternoon sightings of those clear blue
skies being the exception. However, there are plans for a new home but not on
the same scale as what we just sold. For Margo and me, it’s no longer about the
size or the amount of embellishing but rather, it’s more about reduced
maintenance. And time; time to spend together meeting with friends and seeing
new places. At one point we were asked who had keys to our home and in all
honesty, we couldn’t recall just how many tradesmen that helped maintain our
home had keys but it had to be more than a handful.

What we didn’t come to appreciate of course was how all the homes built on the
hill in Niwot, Colorado, all lost more than half their value over the past ten
years. Margo and I have never dwelt on the past or been swayed by “doom and
gloom” machinations that have overtaken many of our neighbors. That’s just not
who we are. As we now focus on getting a new home that will be more manageable
we have surprised many of our friends by electing to build once again.

Margo is determined to rein me in this time. I will be
on a very short leash for the next three to four months in part because many of
the decisions have already been made for me – yes, we are buying a home that
already has had foundations poured, framing almost completed and a roof about
to be installed. In short, all I can influence is color schemes and hardware.
While the home is a semi-custom we were pleased with some of the decisions
taken by the builders at this early stage. Following the completion of a
similar home they came up with several embellishments to the overall design
that Margo and I are very happy with – yes, we will have an open plan with
stainless steel appliances, subway tile backsplash and hardwood floors.

And where will be living as from this summer? The small township of Windsor,
Colorado, midway between Fort Collins and Greeley and on a golf course
alongside the seventeenth fairway about pin high. As we strolled across the
course for a better look at the construction we couldn’t help noticing the
clouds had descended upon us once again. They may have added to the somber mood
we had been in for the past couple of weeks but like the clouds themselves, any
remnants of those somber moments have now left us and we just can’t wait to see
how our new home turns out. And if you would like to come see us anytime this
summer, just let us know as there will be plenty of room for our friends and
family!